OPay’s $400m mega round (but not only) takes the ecosystem to new heights

Where do we begin?…

• Back in mid July, the ecosystem had already raised as much as it had in the whole of 2019 through $1m+ deals*. As of last Friday – and even before ‘The News’ that dropped yesterday (see below) -, the total amount raised by start-ups in Africa so far this year had just surpassed the total amount raised in 2020 overall ($1.6bn).
• And then on Monday, the rumours of an upcoming mega round by OPay – which had been going around since May – were confirmed to be true: the company just announced a $400m funding round. This is the largest round on record for the continent. And it means the ecosystem has now reached another milestone with over $2bn raised in 2021 so far.
• Finally, it goes without saying that with the very good level of activity the ecosystem had already seen this month, and this extra $400m top-up, August 2021 will the most successful month on record, a title held until now by November 2019, with $475m raised, driven by Interswitch’s unicorn-making round, and… OPay’s $120m Series B.

As they say: Onward and Upward!

We’re still enjoying a bit of a break but we’ll be back very soon with our regular Monday morning posts. In the meanwhile, you can always go back to previous posts, make a bit of noise on social media, give us ideas for future analysis… or just sit back and enjoy a m/cocktail 🍹

* For comparability’s sake with 2019 and 2020, all the numbers used include only deals $1m & over. Deals between $100k and $1m represent at least an extra $42m in 2021 so far. For a full list of those, check out the database here.

9 digits or nothing.

Since January, start-ups in Africa have consistently raised more than $100m a month

Back in 2019, there were 3 months when start-ups in Africa raised more than $100m through deals $1m & over. In 2020, there were 6. In 2021 so far, start-ups in Africa have raised at least $100m every single month*. In February, March and May, this was driven in part by very large $100m+ fintech deals : TymeBank, Flutterwave and Chipper Cashrespectively.

Now, you will see that the Swvl number is not yet included in the July tally. ICYMI, on July 28, they announced their plan to go public in a $1.5bn SPAC merger, a first of its kind for a start-up operating in Africa. It’s definitely big, but we’ve not yet managed to find a robust source laying out how much one should consider Swvl have ‘raised’ in the process. If you think you have the answer, please do drop us a note. And if just like us you’re still learning about SPACs, here are 3 articles we found useful: 1, 2, 3.

It’s a great track record for the ecosystem so far, but What does the future hold? Well, with Kuda raising $55m on August 2nd, it wouldn’t be surprising if August eventually joined this series of consecutive 9-digit months…

We’re going to post a bit less regularly this month as we enjoy time with our loved ones, but we’re still very much keeping an eye on deals, and looking forward to your comments and shares. And we hope you’re also getting a chance to let your hair down!

The numbers on the graph only include deals $1m & over (for comparability’s sake with 2019 and 2020). Deals between $100k and $1m represent an extra $9m a month on average in 2021 so far. For a full list of those, check out the database here.

Money fall on you…

A strong start of July takes the ecosystem past the full 2019 mark in terms of funding raised (deals $1m+)

As of this week, start-ups in Africa have now already raised more funding in 2021 than they had in the whole of 2019. With an impressive $167m+ raised through $1m+ deals since July 1st (that’s already more than the $142m raised in the whole of June…), the ecosystem has now crossed the $1.3 billion mark:

Well, unlike start-ups in Africa, we’re taking a short break. On this pretty exciting milestone, we’re going to take a couple of weeks off. We’ll be back in early August with more content of course 🙂 In the meanwhile, you can go back to previous posts (see below for the 5 most popular this year so far), share with your networks, read other newsletters (e.g. African Tech Story), and why not even do your own analysis on the database available at http://thebigdeal.gumroad.com. See you soon!

Mapping the money 🗺️

89% of the funding raised in H1 went to the Top5 markets, with South Africa and Nigeria leading the pack

The tech ecosystem in Africa has had a pretty phenomenal first half of the year with ~$1.2bn+ raised through deals $100k and over. Let’s have a look at where all this money was invested:

• South Africa and Nigeria are in a league of their own, and together attracted more than half of all the funding raised on the continent (28% & 27% respectively, $300m+ each).
• Kenya, Egypt and Ghana complete the Top5 (13%, 11% & 10% respectively). Though with a much smaller number of deals (18) compared to the other four markets (where the number of deal ranges from 49 to 64), Ghana’s overall performance – mostly driven by Chipper Cash’s $100m Series C – is on par with some of the ‘Big Four’ (or should we say ‘Big Five’?)
• The rest of the funding (just over 10%) went to deals spread across 19 markets
  • Tunisia, Morocco and the DRC with more than $10m each
  • Uganda, Senegal, Cameroon, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali and Sierra Leone, with at least one $1m+ deal each
  • Madagascar, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Togo, Burkina Faso, and Zambia, with all deals below the $1m mark

And there is definitely more to come… Nearly $150m (!) have already been raised by start-ups in Africa in the first 10 days of H2, most of which went to Nigeria ($100m+ inc. $42m to FairMoney) and Egypt ($42m+ inc. $40m to MaxAB), which are now overtaken South Africa and Kenya respectively. In short: Watch this space!

Thanks for reading, and don’t hesitate to share this with anyone you think could find this helpful. The full database is available at http://thebigdeal.gumroad.com.7

A pretty phenomenal H1

In H1’21, start-ups in Africa have raised more than they had raised in H1’19 and H1’20 combined

With half of the year behind us, it is a good time to take stock of an ecosystem that’s growing faster than ever:

• In 2021 so far, start-ups in Africa have raised a whopping $1.14bn+ through deals $1m & over ($1.19bn+ if we also include $100k-$1m deals). This is more than double the amount raised in H1 2020
• 80% of that funding was raised by start-ups HQ’ed in one of the ‘Big Four’, with Nigeria and South Africa neck and neck at 28% each
• Nearly half (48%) of the funding went to fintech start-ups. It is worth noting that this share is higher than in previous years where most of the fintech funding was raised in H2 (89% of it in 2019, and 76% in 2020). If 2021 follows the same pattern, the share of fintech could well keep growing…
• All-male founding teams are still getting the lion’s share of funding raised in Africa (77%). More encouragingly however, 14% of the funding was raised by female CEOs; this is far from gender-balanced, yet a significant improvement compared to H1’20 (2%)

And to celebrate this incredible semester, here is an updated version of the graph from our very first post three months ago:

All eyes on Africa

7 out of 10 investors involved in $100k+ deals in Africa in 2021 so far are HQ’ed outside the continent

A few weeks ago, we looked at investors who had done at least 10 deals in Africa: Launch Africa (Mauritius), Kepple Ventures Africa (Japan), Y Combinator (US) and Flat6Labs (Egypt). They have since been joined by Norrsken (Sweden), and we thought we’d look at where investors in Africa come from: 

• Of the 369 investors who have been involved in at least one $100k+ deal in Africa this year, 110 (30%) are headquartered on the continent. They tend to be quite active: 40% have been involved in more than one deal in the past 6 months. The ‘Big Four’ are home to 84% of active ‘local’ investors, with South Africa (30) leading the way, followed by Nigeria (28) and Egypt (23); Kenya is quite further behind, with 11 active investors so far this year, none of which are in the Top20 in terms of number of deals. 
• The US is home to more investors involved in a deal in Africa than Africa itself: 133. US-based investors are however significantly less active than Africa-based investors: 87% of them have so far only participated in one deal.
• In Europe, the UK and France combined (with 20 each) make up more than half of investors active in Africa this year; the remaining 39 investors originate from quite a diverse group of countries, 12 in total.
• Japan (9) is by far the country with the most active investors from Asia-Pacific (23 in total); the absence of almost any recorded activity from China-based investors is worth noting. Finally, of the 21 active investors based in the Middle East, the majority are from either the UAE (8) or Saudi Arabia (7). 

… but if you want to go far, go together

80% of start-up deals in Africa are signed by start-ups with 2 co-founders or more

For this week’s post, we looked at the size of founding teams in Africa, and what we found is a very strong constant:

• Roughly half of the deals in Africa are signed by a founding team duo: this is true regardless of the deal size; of the deal type, of the sector; of the gender diversity of the founding team; of the CEO’s gender; over time; and across geographies. The only exception being Egypt, where the percentage of 2-person founding teams is slightly lower at 39%, and 3-person founding teams are almost as common (35%).
• The second finding is that as deals grow in size, so does the size of the founding team. While one-founder start-ups make up 27% of small deals (<$1m*), this proportion is down to 13% for $10m+ deals.
• Finally, gender-diverse founding teams are larger. But this is a direct consequence of the fact that in 95% of the cases, when a one-founder start-up raises $1m+, that one-founder in a man.

All in all, whether you’re an entrepreneur or an investor, it seems you’re better off thinking of start-up founding as teamwork, rather than solitary genius…

Of Series and Seeds

A quick look at the size of typical funding rounds in Africa

Pre-Seed, Seed, Pre-Series A, Series A… What do these labels mean in Africa? First of all, it is worth noting that just two-thirds of funding announcements do refer to one such ‘category’; a third simply don’t bother. Though the terms are widely used, they tend to refer to chronological milestones rather than to rigid definitions and pre-defined funding amounts. Indeed, the range of funding raised under each of those is very wide: you can actually come across a $5m deal labelled as a Series B, Series A, Seed, or even pre-Seed (Telda) round. Beyond those extremes, we found that:

• Most pre-Seed rounds fall between $100k and $300k, with a median at $125k
• Seed rounds most often range from $0.5m to $2.5m. The median is $1m. If we compare key countries, Seed rounds in Kenya tend to be slightly bigger ($1.25m median), comparable to the African average in Nigeria and South Africa, and quite smaller in Egypt ($0.5m median)
• At Series A level, the median deal is $3.5m, and most deals fall in the $1.5m to $15m bracket. Kenya and Egypt are aligned with the African average ($3.8m median) while deals tend to be smaller in South Africa ($2.5m median), and considerably larger in Nigeria ($9m median)
• Series B rounds mostly range from $8m to $38m, with a median at $20m

Finally, beyond pre-Seed, the use of ‘pre-’ rounds is limited. The median for the 12 pre-Series A rounds we identified is actually below that of Seed rounds ($900k vs. $1m). And pre-Series B rounds are a very rare sighting, understandably so.

USD 1,000,000,000+ and counting

Start-ups in Africa are raising faster than ever, reaching the $1bn mark in less than 5 months

Last week, the start-up ecosystem in Africa crossed a significant milestone, with over $1 billion raised since the beginning of the year. This is an achievement in itself, but what’s particularly impressive is how fast it all happened. Back in 2019, it had taken until mid-November to reach that point. In 2020, it was in the bag by end of September. This time, it took merely 5 months to get there! Should start-ups in Africa keep raising at this pace, they could reach $2.5 billion of total funding raised by the end of 2021. Comparing 2021’s first billion to that of 2019 and 2020, we find that:

• The majority (80%) of the funding is still raised in one of the ‘Big Four’ markets (Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt), though slightly less than in 2019 and 2020 (83% and 87% respectively).
• So far this year, 41% of the disclosed deals $1m & over were by start-ups raising their first million; this proportion is lower than it was for the first billion in 2019 and 2020 (50% for both).
• Finally, while women CEOs had only raised 4% and 2% of the first billion raised in 2019 and 2020 respectively, this year they have bagged 14% of the amount; a long way still from 50%, but a significant enough improvement to be noted.

And one last thing: over 320 investorshave already participated in at least one deal in Africa this year. Quite spectacular!

Fintech etc.

Fintech keeps dominating the funding landscape in Africa, but many sectors have attracted USD100m or more since 2019

Everywhere fintech is making headlines, and Africa is no exception. With north of $1.8 billion since 2019, fintech start-ups have raised 47% of all the funding raised by start-ups in Africa through $1m+ deals during the period, dwarfing all the other sectors. And this share actually increased between 2019 (43%) and 2020 (50%); in 2021, it stands at 47% so far. And that’s not yet including the Chipper Cash $100m Series Cannounced last night, (or OPay’s planned $400m round). Energy (15%) and Logistics & Transport (8%) hold the second and third place respectively. Six other industries – with shares ranging from 3% to 6% – complete the list, some with rather stable performances year on year, such as Education & Jobs, while others tend to get boosted by a few large deals such as Healthcare (more here), or Deep Tech (with Gro Intelligence’s $85m round in January 2021). There are also very strong geographic disparities. Nigeria is a fintech powerhouse with $1bn+ raised since 2019, 70% of the total raised by start-ups in the country. In South Africa, 46% of the funding goes to fintech, but the two sectors completing the top 3 are actually Media & Entertainment (16%) and Healthcare (9%, thanks to LifeQ’s $47m Series Aannounced last week). Kenya offers a more balanced picture: fintech leads yet again but with 37% of the total funding raised, while Agriculture & Food, Energy, and Deep Tech each represent 10%-20% of the total funding raised there. Finally, Egypt offers a complete different picture: at 12% of the total, fintech ranks only third, behind Logistics & Transport (40%, driven to a large extent by Swvl’s rounds) and Healthcare (14%, courtesy of Vezeeta in particular).

Strength on the Nile

Egypt has earned its spot in the ‘Big Four’ of the African tech ecosystem

Do you also get the feeling that Egypt gets featured quite heavily these days when it comes to start-up deals? Well, with a $1m+ deal announced every 10 days on average since the beginning of the year, it does represent 18% of deals so far, just behind South Africa (24%) and Nigeria (22%), and ahead of Kenya (15%). Egypt’s share of the African ecosystem has been growing steadily since 2018, at least in terms of number of deals. When it comes to the share of the total value raised however, it represents around 8% of the continent’s total, which is relatively low compared to its weight in Africa’s overall GDP (16%). Though it ranked third in total value raised in 2019 (ahead of South Africa), it was #4 in 2020 – and is still so far in 2021YTD -, trailing behind the Top 3. This is partly due to the low number of very large deals: beyond Swvl (which raised $60m+ in 2019-2020), no other Egyptian start-up has disclosed a deal over $50m. (Fawry, with its market cap now topping $2bn is of course a great Egyptian success story, but it’s not counted here as it IPO’ed back in 2019). There’s good reason for optimism for the years ahead given the number and size of Egypt-focused funds: in the past couple of months alone, ~$290m (!) were announced by funds focused on the country: $69m for Sawari Ventures, $90m for Algebra Ventures, $120m for GIZ’s VC University, and Flat6Lab’s $10m top-up on its FAC Egypt fund just yesterday. This validates the attractiveness of the market, and will help fuel its growth further. Finally, a quick analysis of the CEOs who raised $1m+ in Egypt since 2019 reveals that 2/3rd of them have been to university in the country, a proportion much higher than in Kenya or Nigeria for instance. Aligned with the rest of the continent, there is still a long way to go when it comes to gender diversity: 90% of the founding teams did not have a single female co-founder, and all but one (Chefaa’s Doaa Aref) had a male CEO.

Beyond the ‘Big Four’

A look at the countries gearing up to challenge the dominance of Africa’s top ecosystems

The Big Four (NG, KE, ZA, EG) dominate funding news, with 75% of $1m+ deals, and 85% of the related funding. Some argue on occasion that the ‘Big Four’ are more a ‘Big Five’, given Ghana’s performance. However, with 3.5% of the total raised since 2019, it is still trailing behind Egypt (#4, 8%). And in 2021 so far, one start-up in Ghana has raised more than $1m (Redbird, $1.5m), compared to 10 in Egypt (for a total of $38m). Behind Ghana, three ecosystems boast between $40m and $60m of funding raised in the past 2.5 years: Uganda (#6), Tanzania (#7), and #Tunisia (#8). They are followed by a group of five, with a total raised between $10m and $20m each: Morocco (#9), Ethiopia (#10), Senegal (#11), Cameroon (#12) & Zimbabwe (#13). Rwanda – often a popular choice when people are asked to name the most active ecosystems on the continent – comes at #15, behind the DRC (#14). Though this ‘long tail’ still represents a low percentage of the funding raised in Africa overall, if we look at earlier-stage deals things are quite encouraging. For instance, of the disclosed deals $100k to $1m in 2021 so far, 1 in 3 is located outside of the Big Four, pointing to the development of a pipeline of future larger deals in these geographies. On the down side however, over half of Africa’s countries – with a combined population of 250+ million – cannot claim a single start-up having raised at least $1m since early 2019.

Where did your CEO study?

Two thirds of the start-ups CEOs who raised funding in Africa since 2019 have studied outside the continent, with strong differences depending on the country

For this week’s analysis, we’ve tried something different, and looked at where the CEOs of the start-ups in Africa that raised $1m+ since 2019 went to university (if we could find the data, which was the case for 84% of the deals). Overall, 35% of the CEOs graduated from an African university; the rest – i.e. the majority – mostly graduated from either a European (31%) or US (29%) university. There are big differences however depending on the country. In South Africa and Egypt in particular, about two thirds of the deals were signed by a CEO who had studied locally; these locally-educated CEOs represent an even larger share if we look at the amount raised: 81% and 77% respectively. The percentage of deals raised by CEOs educated locally drops to 28% for Nigeria, and just 16% in Kenya. Kenya is also the only one of the ‘Big 4’ where the share of funding raised by CEOs who studied locally (11%) is lower than the share of deals, meaning that these CEOs raised on average less that their counterparts who studied abroad. Overall, when the CEO studied in Africa, there are very few cases – if any in the Big 4 – where they studied outside of the country where their start-up is headquartered. Now if we look at the numbers through a gender lens, it appears that female CEOs are less likely to have studied on the continent compared to male CEOs (26% vs 36%); 90% of the amount raised by female CEOs goes to CEOs who have studied outside the continent. Finally, in terms of individual universities, all countries considered, the University of Cape Town tops the list (26 graduates), followed by four non-African universities: Harvard (12), Oxford (11), MIT (11) and Columbia (9). In Nigeria the university with most graduates is OAU; in Egypt, the American University in Cairo leads the way. One last note: these numbers should not be read as an incentive for future CEOs to study abroad, or for investors to focus on foreign-educated CEOs, but rather as a recognition that great ecosystems – like in Egypt, South Africa and to a lesser extent Nigeria – can be built by majority locally-educated entrepreneurs.

I no come Lagos to count bridge

Nigeria attracts nearly twice as much start-up funding compared to its share of the continent’s GDP

If you follow the news about start-up fundraising in Africa, you’re very much used to Nigeria making headlines. Interestingly, in terms of number of disclosed deals $1m & over, Nigeria isn’t really punching much above its weight, with 22% of all deals disclosed since early 2019. South Africa actually ‘does better’ with 24% of deals, despite a much lower nominal GDP. Maybe Nigeria represents a larger share of smaller deals ($100k-$1m)? With 22% of those since Jan 2021 (33 out of 150), it doesn’t seem like it. Where we find a big difference though, is in terms of total amount raised. Since 2019, start-ups in Nigeria have raised close to $1.4bn through $1m+ deals. This is more than 38% of the total amount raised on the continent in that period, and almost as much as its two runners-up Kenya and South Africa combined. Start-ups in Nigeria are doing particularly well when it comes to very large deals with 4 in the Top5: Paystack, Interswitch, Flutterwave& Opay. Nigerian start-ups are more often than not led by Nigerians, including from the diaspora, which is less the case in Kenya for instance. On the downside, female representation still lags behind: 85% of the funding in Nigeria is raised by all-male founding teams, in line with the rest of the continent. Worryingly, female CEOs have raised less than 1% of all funding raised by start-ups in Nigeria since 2019, a proportion 8 times lower than in the rest of Africa… All in all, the next large deal in Africa is statistically very likely to be raised by a fintech in Nigeria with a male CEO and an all-male founding team. This doesn’t mean there aren’t many talented women entrepreneurs ready to jump on the main stage; nor that other countries (think Kenya, South Africa, or Egypt) aren’t working hard to snatch Nigeria’s crown… But that’s for another week

Mind the Gender Gap

Female-led start-ups in Africa remain critically underrepresented, despite some encouraging signs this year

This week we’re comparing access to funding between male- and female-led start-ups in Africa, and I’m afraid this is not a pretty sight. In 2019, female CEOs signed just 8% of deals $1m & over on the continent, and their start-ups bagged only 4% of the total amount raised. In 2020, the situation was even worse: still 8% of the deals, but only 2% of the money. While start-ups overall raised 24% more in 2020 than in 2019, the amount raised by female CEOs actually decreased by 30% over the same period. It is worth noting that in the vast majority of cases, the CEO is one of the co-founders; the underrepresentation of women at CEO level is therefore also a function of the absence of women in the founding team of over 75% of the start-ups that raised $1m+ since 2019. But is there light at the end of the tunnel? The numbers are certainly encouraging: with 14% of deals and 20% of the money raised, female CEOs seem to be gaining some ground in 2021 so far with $140m already raised in less than 4 months this year. That’s 1.6 times what was raised over 2019 and 2020 combined (!). Yet, a significant portion of this amount is driven by Gro Intelligence’s whopping $85m Series B announced in January (the CEO Sara Menker and one of her 2 other co-founders are women). One can hope this is just the first of a long list of very large deals signed by female CEOs. Looking at the early deal pipe (deals between $100k and $1M), where female CEOs are doing 13% of deals and raising 9% of the total amount so far this year, there certainly is hope… though parity is still nowhere in sight.

The investors rocking 2021 so far

A look at 2021’s most active investors in Africa, for now…

This week we thought we’d look at the investors that have been involved in the most deals so far this year. We’re talking disclosed deals, but also some confidential ones they’ve kindly shared with us 😉. Two players in particular – Launch Africa & Kepple Africa – seem to have taken a pretty strong lead. With 18 and 17 deals respectively, they are investing at a rate of over a deal a week(!). They are followed by Y Combinator & Flat6Labs. Beyond the volume of deals, at least two points are worth mentioning about them. Firstly, it is very encouraging to see that these most active investors are venturing outside of the “Big Four” (NG, ZA, KE, EG) and also signing deals, or taking part in rounds, with start-ups based in Tunisia, Côte d’Ivoire, Botswana, Senegal or Togo. Secondly, these Top 4 are active in rounds as low as ~$100k, and the median rounds they’re involved in are usually in that “missing middle” early-stage start-ups are often calling out (⚠️ not to misread the data: we are talking ‘overall round size’ here, not ‘individual investors’ ticket size’). Of course, many more other investors have signed deals this year already. If we include the full ‘long tail’, in 2021 so far, at least 216 investors have already participated in one deal or more on the continent. And there is no doubt some of those who were most active in 2020 (think Goodwell Investments, 500 Startups or Lateral Capital) have also been building their portfolios this year, and have a few deals up their sleeve to be disclosed soon (…or not!).

Is a pandemic good for your health…tech?

🩺 A surge in funding in Q1 & Q2 2020, but a negligible impact overall

Though since Q3-20 the share of funding raised by healthtech start-ups has gone back to pre-pandemic levels (around 2%), the first half of 2020 deserves some attention. Indeed, while VC activity on the continent slumped, to take stock of the ‘unprecedented times’, healthtech start-ups did really well. Of the 5 largest healthtech deals since early 2019, all but one (mPharma) were announced between February and May 2020: Vezeeta (largest deal at $40m), 54gene, mPharma and Helium Health. In April 2020 specifically, the two healthtech deals (54gene & Helium Health) made up 78% (!) of all funding raised through disclosed USD1m+ deals in Africa. But this bonanza was short-lived. Indeed, despite the frenzy of early pandemic months, when we compare the first year of the pandemic (Q2-20 to Q1-21) to the year prior (Q2-19 to Q1-20), healthtech ventures haven’t actually performed any better than the rest of the ecosystem in terms of fundraising, and their share of total funding remained stable: 4.1% in year 1 of the pandemic, versus 4.2% the year prior. Will the pandemic have encouraged more investors to consider healthtech as a promising sector? Could this translate into more or larger deals further down the line? For now, it’s pretty hard to tell…

Is 2021 off to a good start?

Start-ups in Africa are rocking Q1

Now the March is over, let’s look back at Q1-21, Shall we? Though some may argue what Africa really needs is zebras, an African start-up reaching ‘unicorn’ status is always a cause for celebration. If 2020 ended on a high, with Stripe’s USD200m acquisition of Nigerian fintech Paystack, 2021 started with a bang, as Nigerian fintech Flutterwave (do we see a pattern here?) raised $170m in early March and is now also valued at over USD1bn. Beyond this mega deal, Q1 has been a pretty extraordinary quarter for the African tech ecosystem: Adumo, DayStar Power, Gro Intelligence, Kuda, Mubawab, Planet42, SunCulture, Tymebank and WeFarm for instance all raised north of USD10m, while Yuppiechef was acquired by Mr Price for USD30m+. Overall, the amount raised through disclosed deals USD1m & over in Q1-21 is 73% (!) higher than in Q1-20. Of course, due to the pandemic Q1-20 had seen early signs of a slowdown (check out Q2-20…), but the pandemic is dragging out unfortunately, yet Q1-21 was extremely strong. Remarkably, Q1-21 numbers are higher than Q4-20, which is pretty unusual, as Q4s tend to see a surge in investments as investors rush to close deals before year end. So, in many ways Q1-21 was a pretty spectacular quarter… Will the rest of 2021 live up to it?

Is it July already?

Q1 2021 > H1 2020

As we wait for the last deals of March 2021 to be disclosed before we can compute Q1 numbers, one thing is clear: the first quarter of the year has been 🔥 for start-ups in Africa! Beyond TymeBank’s $109M Series B and Flutterwave’s $170M Series C, announced just a couple of weeks apart, dozens of start-ups have raised rounds of $1M+ since the beginning of the year. As a matter of fact, the ecosystem has already crossed the half-billion-dollar mark of funding raised through those $1M+ deals in 2021, and quite comfortably so. Back in 2019 and 2020, it had taken twice as long – until July basically – to reach such a milestone. Now, How long do you think it will take to get to the first billion? 

Source : thebigdeal.substack.com